On Mon, 2005-01-24 at 17:32 -0500, Josh Koffman wrote:
> Actually, this was covered last night on Mythbusters. The infrared
> LEDs did nothing to disturb the LIDAR. Of course, I don't think they
> checked the exact wavelength of either the LIDAR or the LEDs. I'd
> imagine there is a pretty good filter on the LIDAR that rejects
> anything not modulated just right.
> 
> And yes, tampering with bits of your car like that can be illegal
> depending on where you live.

Yes I saw that too, and while Mythbusters does do things the fun way,
they don't always test things the RIGHT way, and this is just another
case of where they are "wrong" (the other big one in my mind was the
frozen chicken through a plane or fast train window thing).

A British show I watch (I find I actually prefer British produced shows
these days, I think it's the accent) called "Fifth Gear" demonstrated a
product that absolutely interferes with Lidar to the point it's useless.
It was actually quite clever: it had a Lidar detector, once it detected
a Lidar beam it sounded a warning and shot it's IR laser to interfere
with the Lidar. The the second time it detects a Lidar beam it sounds an
alarm, but doesn't interfere. The theory is that you will slow down when
you hear the alarm the first time, and the second time the cop presses
the trigger the gun shows your true speed. The cop thinks the first time
was "just a glitch" and lets you go on your way.

Obviously such a device is quite illegal in most areas, but it's
definitely possible.

Again, all of this stuff is silly in my mind since the best way to
"defeat" these tools is to simply NOT speed. But I digress...

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